How To Beat NFL DFS Tournaments In 2026 (Episode 1019 with Adam Levitan, Drew Dinkmeyer, Sam Brott)

Adam Levitan (0:15)

Hello, and welcome to the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan, and I like season long fantasy football.

I like basketball. I like dynasty. But for me, the greatest, purest, most intense form of fantasy football is DFS, and it's not particularly close. So I am very excited for today's show. Joining me to talk about the great game are two of the best daily fantasy sports players that I know, Drew Dinkmeyer, one of the biggest DFS winners ever. How's it going, buddy?

Drew Dinkmeyer (0:55)

It's going great. We're one and a half weeks away from sweating millions of dollars on the line on a Sunday afternoon. So it's a great time to be alive.

Adam Levitan (1:05)

Indeed it is. And from our data side, team single entry, three max crusher, full-grown sim bro, Sam Brott. How's it going, buddy?

Sam Brott (1:15)

It's going well. I couldn't be more excited for the season to start. I'm with you. All this off-season stuff is fun with the best ball and everything.

Pre-season DFS is great too, but there really is nothing like regular season NFL football DFS.

Adam Levitan (1:28)

Indeed. On today's show, we are going to discuss how to beat NFL DFS tournaments in 2026 We'll talk about what the field has been doing lately, what has won lately, how the game has changed and adapted to the changing NFL, specific strategy for today's DFS landscape, and more. Today's show is brought to you by Polymarket, one of the world's largest prediction markets and one that is now available in every US state. Longtime listeners of this show know that I care most about getting the best price. I'm not just talking about players' ADP and fantasy. I'm talking about making any predictions around sports. Like, I legit feel sick when I don't get the best odds. And that's why I've been so interested in Polymarket. Because Poly is a prediction market where traders trade against each other, we can often get the best price, aka the biggest payout. For example, best price on sportsbooks right now for Jamir Gibbs, offensive player, Deere, is 6 to 1 On Poly, it's 12%.

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All right, let's get into it here. I want to start with the theme of the NFL lately, and this whole strategy concept and change that's been happening in the NFL. Teams are running way more. They're passing less. Teams are playing more cover too. Teams are playing lighter boxes.

This has been the key to fantasy has been, I think over the last couple of years, understanding this and getting back into more running back centric lineups. So Brott, what has the field been doing in response to how the NFL is changing? And what should we be doing? And by the way, like we can look at this through flex usage on DraftKings in tournaments. How often people are using running back and flex versus wide receiver versus tight end. So Brott, any thoughts on the changing NFL and how that's flowed through to DFS tournaments?

Sam Brott (4:11)

Yeah, I mean, there's certainly been a narrative and maybe not even just a narrative, just the fact that the NFL has gone more run heavy. I know you've talked about it a lot recently, Adam, about how there is this whole shift to, okay, we got to throw the ball, we got to create big explosive plays and then the defense is adjusted for that. So then a lot of NFL teams responded by, okay, you're going to give me a lighter box. I'm going to run the ball more. I'm going to get more heavy personnel with tight ends on the field. I'm going to use less wide receivers. So we see this shift in how the actual NFL teams have adjusted to the changing landscape and then the fantasy football players are adjusting as well. So we see that the field is kind of gravitating a little bit more towards using running backs in flex more often. But we're also seeing a situation here where ultimately, the field is just not using running backs enough in flex. And I think part of that might just be this kind of anchor bias that we have to, you know, years ago where the fantasy like slates were basically won by, okay, did you get those like super high end outcomes from your wide receivers that hit a unmatchable ceiling or not? Because we were seeing so many explosive plays, but one thing that we did look into a lot was just, is the field using running back and flex enough right now? And I think the short answer is no.